Evidence Analysis Quotes

When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.

History is not only the record of the past, but also the discipline of investigating and interpreting the past. The study of history develops habits of critical thinking and effective writing, as well as cultivates the careful analysis of various types of quantitative and qualitative evidence.

While you're finding evidence of innocence, you also find evidence that points to other people.

Simplification of modes of proof is not merely an indication of advance in our knowledge of a subject, but is also the surest guarantee of readiness for farther progress.

I think like a detective.

It often seems to me that's all detective work is, wiping out your false starts and beginning again." Yes, it is very true, that. And it is just what some people will not do. They conceive a certain theory, and everything has to fit into that theory. If one little fact will not fit it, they throw it aside. But it is always the facts that will not fit in that are significant.

Forensic science offers great potential, as it draws on almost every discipline and, in doing so, creates widespread opportunity for innovation.

I'm trying to read more dead people because I keep having to read stuff for juries and so forth.

'Strong Island' is not your typical true-crime film. It's not actually about the uncovering of evidence or following leads that hadn't been seen before or any of that stuff.

I was a defense attorney before I was a prosecutor, and so knowing what the defense is going to try to do is something that you have to do constantly when you're in trial. I always went to trial knowing what they were doing. So I was always in both mindsets anyway. 'Oh, they're going to do this, then I'm going to do that.'

Finding truth involves some kind of activity. As I like to point out, truth isn't handed to you on a platter. It's not something that you get at a cafeteria, where they just put it on your plate. It's a search, a quest, an investigation, a continual process of looking at and looking for evidence, trying to figure out what the evidence means.

I certainly try to avoid getting bogged down in forensics. There is certainly a whole lot of other writers who know a lot more than me about it. I know enough about it to do a little bit of background on laboratory techniques and stuff. But it kind of bores me.

Everyone is doing forensics.

There is simply no plausible construction of the known evidence that leaves out Novak either providing a proffer through his lawyer of what he would say if he testified or having testified directly.

The average juror is not Mr. Spock. If he were, then a trial-court judge's job would be much easier. He could instruct the jury in broad strokes - instructing only as to the bare elements of the crime, perhaps - and be confident that the jury would deduce all of the finer-grained implications that must logically follow.

Many police departments still use DNA evidence the way they have used fingerprints and tire tracks: to determine whether a suspect committed the crime.

Does somebody have an explanation why there's human flesh on the hall window upstairs?

I had not seen that until - and when it first came out I was told. I had not seen or been aware of all of that physical evidence. And when I saw it, I was horrified. It was so astounding to me to see that there was that much evidence.

Forensics is eloquence and reduction.

No crime lab in the world looks like the 'CSI' ones because there's simply not the money for all those fancy machines.

You never know when you lose a case whether it was because the facts were against you, or because the judges had already made up their minds, or if you could have done something differently.

A lawyer wants to get his client off the hook. And even if he knows the client is guilty, he is going to find ways and means of getting him off the hook.

The main difference is, in 'Cold Case,' the victim sometimes had been dead for decades - you didn't have the advantage of being able to interview the victim. You had to piece together the circumstances surrounding the crime from witnesses and other evidence. 'SVU' is much more immediate in that you can talk to the victim.

After an extensive investigation, the office produced a report that addressed the many questions that confronted the difficult issues, it laid out new evidence, and it reached a definitive conclusion.

Don't be so damned discouraging," said Wimsey. "I have already carefully explained to you that this time I am investigating this business. Anybody would think you had no confidence in me." "People have been wrongly condemned before now." "Exactly; simply because I wasn't there." "I never thought of that.